Trapped (A Ticci Toby story)
by Geofox1
Summary: ***This story is told completely through Toby's POV*** My life has stopped... I was supposed to keep training. I was supposed to be there for Sally when she couldn't sleep. I was supposed to be between Jeff and Ben while they tried to show me a movie I could never sit still long enough for. I was supposed to be with them. But im not. Something horrible happened to me...
1. Prologue- Burden

The night wind blows the taste of the sea onto my tongue.  
The bitter taste of salt and rust made the energy in the air stronger.  
 _Tonight blood will fall._  
My eyes scanned over the dark factory floor. Slow red pulses of light above the conveyor belts were the only chance I had of finding Masky and Hoodie.  
 _Where are they?_  
They have been gone for too long.  
This was never something I had to worry about before. Masky and Hoodie were good at what they do. They always went in and got the job done in no time.  
But tonight, there were no sounds past the crushing waves nearby and the wiping wind that carried droplets of water against my lashes.  
There were no calls of warning or movement from inside.  
There was no gunfire or stomping from the harden men who protected our target.  
There was _nothing._  
And it terrified me.  
For the first time in my life the realization that Masky and Hoodie weren't untouchable had just hit me. They were just as human as me, their lives were in just as much danger as mine.  
 _How could I ever be so stupid? How could I possibly think otherwise for so long?_  
I crouched back down into the nook of weathered wooden crates that Masky and Hoodie had left me in.  
This was enough to shelter me from the wind and the water, it was enough to keep me out of sight from anyone who could hurt me.  
But I still couldn't breathe.  
Masky and Hoodie were assigned to me by the slender man to train me as a proxy and to keep me safe.  
I unclenched my hand and peered down at it in the darkness.  
I was shaking violently.  
 _Was I cold? Was it possible to be cold during the summer?_  
I was never good at knowing this kind of thing.  
I was about to pull my gloves off when I heard a loud thump of metal against metal from below.  
I was on my feet without really thinking it through. I didn't consider that there was a large possibility that the sound i heard wasn't from my protectors. They were to careful to drop something like that.  
I already knew that before I flew down the metal stair way towards the doc, but i didn't care. The only thing I could think about was Masky and Hoodie and E. G. Lithirea.  
I slowed and treaded lightly over the metal strip that led me over the water. The wind zipping past me, blowing my hood back from my head  
Through the rust kissed railing I could see our victim.  
E. G. Lithirea threw black bags of inventory onto a small motor boat that was rocking violently against the doc. My breath caught when he ran back up the stairwell and disappeared into the shipping factory.  
Even I could see that he was trying escape with as much supplies as he could.  
 _He was trying to escape._  
 _Why aren't they stopping him?_  
My breath came out in uneaven gasps.  
 _I need to do something._  
I reached to the goggles on my head and pulled them roughly over my eyes.  
My world turned a shade darker and whatever light I could see was tented to an amber glow.  
Even though it was harder to breath through the cloth that covered my mouth and seeing was a challenge, I knew why I needed to cover my face.  
My victim couldn't see who I was. They couldn't see my expression-they couldn't know how a human felt to take their first life.  
They'll only take advantage of that.  
I can't say I remember how I ended up inside and in the space that led to the doc. I don't remember grabbing the piece of rebar, I don't remember swing it.  
But I remember the sound of impact on the side of his head.  
I remembered the sound of gunfire as he blindly fired a shot at me.  
It was strange... I never considered how loud a gunfire was in real life.  
I never considered how a single sound could stun me in just a rapid heart beat.  
I remember how many times the gun fire echoed off the concrete walls of the building.  
Almost as if it was never going to stop.  
I remember how E. G. Lithirea moved towards me and like a switch being flipped in a dark room, I was aware of everything.  
I swung my weapon again, but this time he was prepared. He grabbed it in mid swing and twisted it out of my hands. In that moment I shoved his hand upwards as he fired again. I gritted my teeth as I tried to pry his hand away from the gun. He hit me with his free hand hard enough cause my vision to fuzz.  
 _He won't get another hit on me again._  
I grabbed his hand and kicked his legs out from underneath him. His wrist snapped before he hit the ground and he cried out.  
I ripped the gun from his hand and time seemed to freeze.  
I stood over him with the gun in my hands while his breathing came out in enraged hisses.  
 _I need to pull the trigger. I needed to do what we came here to do. I needed to kill him because... I just needed too._  
The gun felt too heavy in my shaky hands.  
 _He'd killed people. He shot a man after he said he forgave him. He never intended to let that man go._  
 _He must have hurt Masky and Hoodie!_  
My throat was to tight to breath. I could no longer swallow back the fear of finally taking a life.  
 _Just half an inch._  
I starred down at him in horror.  
 _I-I can't._  
I couldn't.  
I couldn't be the reason his eyes lose their light. I didn't want to see his blood spatter the floors.  
I couldn't take his life-  
I'm afraid  
I sensed a movement in the doorless doorway behind me.  
 _Masky._  
A gust of wind blew through the empty window ledges causing a hollow groaning sound to fill the room.  
I dropped the gun and turned to retreat to Masky. Again, I didn't think. I just knew that Masky will protect me. He was safety and I needed to get to him.  
 _Masky always said I never think before I act._  
E. G. Lithirea was on his feet before I had a chance to take a step. He had his arm clasped tightly around me and the gun pressed hard against the side of my head.  
"Get back!" he said "or I sware to god I'll blow his fucking brains out!"  
I winced away from the gun, but E. G's arm was holding me firmly to him.  
Hoodie was here now too. He was only a darken figure behind Masky's sholder.  
 _They were okay.._  
I thought in a brief relief.  
E. G's arm raised pressing the gun harder against my temple, shoving my head furthered down when he spotted the final proxy.  
"I fucking mean it! Stay back!"  
I tensed while he jerked me back. I new better than fight him.  
Masky and Hoodie didn't move. They didn't speak. They stood there stiffly like soldiers, watching with hidden faces.  
That's how it had to be. They couldn't show E. G. Lithirea that they were human enough to care. They couldn't be negotiated. His death was enviable regardless if he killed me or not.  
"how many of you are there?" he continued. "how many of you? you killed my men! I knew you were watching me! They thought I was crazy! I knew!" E. G. Cocked the gun and I mentally slapped myself for not remembering to do that in the first place. "You don't think I'd take one of your men?"  
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and bared my teeth behind my mask.  
 _They couldn't save me._ _I messed up, i messed up so bad._  
They could never reach me in time. If they moved he would fire. They would be responsible for my death.  
 _I'm such a screw up. Jeff was right._  
I could see past their soulless facade.  
They were terrified.  
I could see masky trying to find a way to save me. I could see hoodie waiting on edge for masky to make the call.  
This was the only thing they could do for me. They were buying me time.  
E. G. Began to pull me backwards towards the door way. He was going to continue to use me as a body shield until he was close enough to the boat to kill me and dispose of me into the black rapid water.  
 _An eye for an eye._  
 _Was this how the world worked?_  
 _Maybe jeff knew he was talking about. Maybe jeff was right to give me his knife before I left with Masky and Hoodie..._  
My heart did a jump in my chest and I carefully slid my fingers into my hoodie pocket. I felt my fingers slide across the thin blade of Jeff's knife.  
 _Maybe I'll have a chance to thank him after all._  
I reached further in and grabbed the knives handle. In one quick motion I shoved the gun as far away as I could from my head before he fired and shoved the knife somewhere into him.  
The sound of the gun caused my vision to sway and my ear to ring.  
"Toby, get back!" masky ordered.  
I stumbled towards them blindly until hoodie caught me.  
I covered my ears and buried my face into hoodies chest.  
One shot from Masky's gun ended it all.  
I clawed at my left ear, panicking because the shot sounded all wrong.  
Distant.  
Distorted.  
"Toby," hoodie was shaking me a little. "are you alright? Are you hurt?"  
"my ear.. " I mumbled numbly. I knew what he meant when he asked if i was hurt. He knew I couldn't feel pain. They taught me for as long as i could remember to tell them if I was ever 'hurt' It never mattered if it was a flesh wound or just a bite, I couldn't tell if i was hurt bad enough to seek help. I couldn't tell if i was poisoned from a bite or sick from a infection.  
Hoodie seemed to relax slightly at my response.  
"yeah, you were pretty close to that gun." I could hear his gentle smile in his soft spoken voice.  
I turned to find masky kneeling over E. G. Lithirea's body. He held the gun that E. G. Had held to my head only moments ago.  
"It's empty." masky said grimly.  
I sank back at the sound of his voice.  
I knew that tone well.  
He was angry.  
 _Of course he was._ _When is he not angry with me?_  
Hoodie gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and stepped around me to meet up with his friend.  
"That's probably why he didn't shoot us on sight. I think Toby used up the last of his bullets." he teased lightly.  
Masky shoved the gun into one of the black bags E. G. Had dropped. He was on his feet and his attention was directly on me.  
There was no humor from Masky. There was never anything like that from him.  
I kept my eyes focused on what I could see of the crashing sea from the windowsill behind him.  
"Toby." Masky said evenly. My eyes betrayed me and flicked up to him without giving me a chance to convene myself to not give into his authority. "do you mind telling me what you were thinking?"  
It didn't matter what i said. I knew what i did was stupid and i knew he had a right to be upset, but i hated it. I hated him telling me what to do. I hated staying behind. I hated feeling useless.  
I tried anyways "I thought you needed my help."  
It sounded stupid even to me.  
"We didn't need your help, Toby! You could've been killed!"  
A gust of wind blew hard into the room. The sound of slitting wind against concrete only seemed to make my anger grow.  
Like feeding air into a growing fire.  
"He was going to get away!"  
"Look around toby! Do you really think he would have gotten far in a boat? We knew where he was! He would have went down with his inventory! This mess wouldn't have happened if you stayed hidden like i told you!"  
He was right... I didn't give myself a chance to figure that out. Even though i was embarrassed i didn't let myself dwell on it.  
"I'm tired of hiding, Masky! I can't stay still long enough to just sit around and wait for you all day! I need to move-it's boring!"  
That was mostly true.  
"That's not my concern. You are not ready to go on these missions, you refuse to take your training seriously and im not going to risk you getting yourself killed because you're bored."  
There was no way i was going to win this argument, i knew that, but the way he never seemed to care, just made me even angrier.  
"Being dead is better than living a life being constantly shoved aside and ignored."  
"you're being ignorant." masky rubbed his temples with frustration.  
I was being ornery, stubborn, and maybe a little arrogant, but this was the only way i knew how to get his attention.  
I disobeyed him, i threatened his duty to keep me safe by acting so carelessly, but that was just it.  
That was exactly the reason why I'm finding it harder and harder to listen to him, to do the things he tells me to do to keep me safe and out if the way.  
I was just a job to him. I was nothing more than a burden he couldn't wait to get away from at the end of the day.  
The only reason I was here was because slender ordered them to take me.  
I was just a tag along to them.  
"yeah, I am! so what?" my words were filled with a hostility that took me by surprise "He didn't shoot me! I'm fine. I didn't ruin your perfect reputation with slendy."  
Masky didn't seem to care about my new found ability of sarcasm, Not the way I hoped he would.  
He turned and pulled off his mask in frustration.  
In this time he was pacing, I watched hoodie pulled money from E. G's pockets and stashed them in his own.  
We were going to need money for the trip back.  
Masky stopped pacing and reeled toward me. More frustrated than he was before. "How can I trust you to survive a mission if you refuse to listen to me on one like this? This is nothing compared to Zalgo! Do you have any idea how far he would go to kill one of us?"  
No. I had no idea, but i didn't care. It wasn't like I wanted to die, i just knew death was impossible with them around. I wanted to be heard, i wanted them to see that I wasn't as useless as i felt, I wasn't just a burden.  
I only made it worse.  
"i don't care! I never seen zalgo or his stupid minions!" i stood straighter than necessary to try to match masky's broad posture, to appear as strong as him.  
I never felt so small in my life.  
Hoodie laid his gloved hand on my shoulder to steady me "we would like to keep it that way." he soothed.  
I tore away from him and stumbled over the uneven stony ground. Hoodie reached to catch me, but i steadied myself on my own.  
"I can handle!-" i started, but masky cut me off firmly.  
"No. It's not going to happen, not a chance." this was the full force of his anger. When he was tired of me and tired of my disobedience, when he was ready to shut this argument down. "I have too many irons in the fire to deal with and i dont need you being in the middle of them."  
"but hoodie-"  
" _brian_ knows how to take care of himself. I don't have to worry about him getting himself killed because he can't follow simple orders. This stunt you pulled today" he gestured to the body on the floor "just proves to me that you're just as thoughtless and reckless as you have always been."  
A flash of lightning somewhere off in the distance.  
"i didn't ask to be left behind! You never give me a chance!"  
He didn't even hesitate.  
"I didn't ask to be stuck with an insubordinate child! I didn't ask for any of this, but i still do as im told!"  
I didn't allow myself to flinch, his words only fueled my anger.  
A hollow groan of wind.  
"I would do as im told if my leader treated me like i was something more than just a waste of space! I train and train and for what? So i could just stay behind and be remind me of how useless i am?"  
Hoodie tried to defuse the situation.  
"Toby, its not like that."  
A crash of thunder  
I wasn't done. For three months I held this in, all the shame, disappointment, and confusion I've felt has incubated in my mind bringing me a new found rage i never felt before. A rage that halted my desire to act the way i was expected to.  
An anger that so easily sparked inside me with my desire to be free.  
"is that all I am to you? Just a waste of time? Do you just want to leave me here so you could just forget I was ever alive?"  
I wanted masky to stoop down to my level. I wanted him to yell at me or insult me over some irrelevant subject, but he didn't.  
He'd never stoop so low.  
He wasn't like jeff or ben.  
He only said.  
"There are some things in this world that are woth protecting."

The storm finally breaks.


	2. Chapter 1- Trapped

The rain fell hard against the pavement.  
I wondered what had made the rain fall so hard tonight. We've been in a drought for months. The plants around us were growing stiff and hard from the neglect.  
But why did it have to rain now? When we were far from home and exposed...  
It couldn't have waited until we were home?  
I bunched my rain splattered goggles in my hands, completely unable to see from them anymore and leaned back against the building.  
I decided i hated the rain.  
 _Selfish..._  
I looked over to hoodie who was sitting next to me. His hair was soaked dropping droplets of water down his face.  
We were taking shelter outside of a 24/7 gas station while Masky was inside grabing a first aid kit for me and some food.  
I wasn't allowed inside. There was too much blood caught in the cloth of my jacket. The heavy shower of rain wasn't even enough to clean it off.  
I closed my eyes, feeling miserable at the weight of my soaked clothes.  
"You know he didn't mean it, right?" hoodie's quiet voice pulled me from my thoughts.  
"What?" I looked at him. His eyes were still focused on the growing pools of rain water that collected on the side of the road.  
"Tim... He really does care about you. He just has a lot on his shoulders... All the time."  
 _Oh... Right...him._  
I whiped my face with a drenched sleeve.  
I didn't understand Masky. One minute we are fine and getting alone, then the next he just blows up on me over the smallest mistake. I knew he was my leader and he was responsible for what happens to me, but he was responsible for hoodie too and he never blew up on him.  
"funny." I said bluntly "he has a crappy way of showing it."  
I held my knees to my chest and watched a single car drive by, illuminating select raindrops with the red of its tale lights. After the car passed I found myself looking directly at a hag woman who was just... staring at me.  
I straighten curiously.  
"One day you'll learn that everyone shows affection differently. The world isn't as black and white as you think it is. There is always a reason for the way someone acts." hoodie's eyes were closed, probably because he was tired of the droplets from his hair dripping into them. "Think of it like this; Tim doesn't talk to you like he does to jeff, right?"  
I smiled despite myself.  
"Right."  
Masky hated jeff.  
I deflected his statement "but he doesn't talk to me like he does to you."  
"I've been friends with him for a very long time, Toby. I understand him in a different level." hoodie was saying. I eyed the woman again... She was still just standing there... staring at me... in the rain. Who does that? "we didn't get along in the beginning."  
"You mean you fought?" I tore my eyes away from the lady for just a second.  
"all the time." he smiled softly.  
I bit my lip and found that woman again. She was still watching me of course, but now she was _smiling_ at me. The dangerous kind of smile jeff gets when he's telling me stories about his childhood.  
My instincts told me there was something wrong here.  
 _This stranger is dangerous._  
"hey, hoodie." My voice was weary. the moment I said that, the woman looked down at the sidewalk "why is that woman staring at me?"  
Hoodie must have heard the fear in my voice because his eyes opened instantly and fell on the older woman.  
She was wobbling away now. Slowly, brokenly, as if each step was a challenge for her.  
"Are you afraid of an old woman, Toby?" hoodie teased.  
I was.  
I was very afraid of her.  
I frowned at this. Something must have been wrong... Right? My instincts were something that I've developed over the time I spent with masky and hoodie. They've taught me to trust my instincts when I had nothing else. Could they be wrong? Was this something I should be trusting my life with?  
Hoodie leaned up in concern  
"are you alright?" he asked.  
I looked at him and was about to tell him I was fine when I suddenly opened my eyes to a blinding white light.  
The figure who was once hoodie leaned over me, their head covered the light source casing a halo like glow in my fuzzy eyes.  
 _Was I dead?... Masky was going to kill me._  
"Can you move?" the angel continued. Her voice was panicked and pitched like she was on the verge of tears.  
I blinked at her a few times  
"...huh?"  
 _Why wouldn't I be able to?_  
She leaned back allowing the full force of light to shine into my eyes.  
I took a breath, unprepared for this.  
 _I can still breathe..._  
"I thought you- I thought they were going to leave you here to-"  
I pulled my head up, tired of staring up at the light.  
 _So I'm not dead?_  
"please, don't force yourself to move, you'll only make it worse" the angel pleaded.  
I ignored her and set up.  
The room we were in was bare, a concrete cube with only a single bed against the wall.  
If i wasn't dead then where was masky and hoodie?  
Why weren't they with me?  
I looked at the girl who I assumed was my angel.  
Her clothes were ripped and torn. I assumed that her T-shirt was once white, but through all the dried mud and blood it was hard to tell. Her shirt hung off of her and did nothing to show her figure... If she had one. Her body was frail and starved. Her black pants were fabric that stopped just below her cavs. They must have been skin tight before...but now, they weren't. Her brown hair was tied back into something that resembled a bun, like she was trying to keep it from getting as matted as it already was.  
I made a face of displeasure at her.  
 _What happened to her?_  
"where am I?" I asked eyeing her dirt covered feet.  
She pulled back in embarrassment and opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again when her tears finally fell from her eyes.  
I watched her impatiently.  
Something that sally used to call me came to mind.  
 _Why was she so upset?_  
"I'm so sorry." she whispered. She hunched over with her hand over her mouth and the other clutching her stomach. "I'm so sorry this happened to you too."  
"What?" I blinked hard trying to clear the fuzziness out of my eyes. "What are you talking about. Nothing happened-"  
"Do you remember what happened before you woke up?" she cut me off with a shaky voice.  
"Yes." I paused for a moment remembering everything leading up to now. I reached to the back of my head feeling the dried blood tangled in my hair.  
 _They hit me..._  
I must have a concussion... It would explain why my vision was so disoriented.  
I stared down at my hand and watched it until finally turned from two hands into one.  
"That guy... "I mumbled, "He hit me... He covered my mouth with a..." panic finally settled into me at the realization. "He took me... He took me away from them-"  
My throat seemed to close on me, cutting me off from whatever I was going to say.  
 _No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening! This wasn't possible! They can't-_  
"Masky!" I called. "Masky! I'm here!" he needed to know I was here-they had to be here. They were looking for me! I didn't care how loud I needed to scream, I didn't care if my voice gave out because of my calls, I didn't care that my voice rang too harshly in the stony room. "masky!"  
"what are you doing?" the girl grabbed my arm. I pulled away from her.  
"they're here- they know I'm missing by now. They're looking for me!" _why weren't they here?_  
"...Did they see Tom take you?" she asked slowly.  
 _No._  
My breath caught in my throat. She took my silence as her answer and I wasn't sure if i caught a hint of disappointment in her eyes.  
' _No hope'_  
They said.  
"if they didn't see tom take you, they won't know where to look. They won't find-"  
"shut up!" I snapped.  
I wasn't just going to sit here and accept my fate. I had to see them again. My family was everything I had.  
I start to stand, but a pull on the back of my foot and the sound of metal against the cement froze me in place.  
I looked down to see a keyring sized loop stuck into the back of my foot just behind my ankle. Attached to it was a brown metal chain and a rusty cowbell to match.  
"What is this?" my voice sounded far away "Get this off of me... " I pulled at the ring. It only caused three collective steady streams of blood to stream out of the incision holes on both sides of my foot. I yanked it harder. "GET THIS OFF OF ME!"  
The girl pulled my hand away from the ring.  
"Stop! Please stop!" she begged "it won't come off. Please, you need to calm down."  
I was panicking. I couldn't breath, I couldn't think, i couldn't move.  
I was hyperventilating.  
 _How could I function without masky and hoodie? I've never been apart from them this long. It hurts. I don't know how to handle this. They never taught me-they didn't teach me anything like this! I don't know what to do!_  
"shhh." the girl soothed. Her tears were dried and her eyes were lit with a fiery determination. "you need to calm down."  
I stared at her.  
Her eyes were a greenish gray.  
 _Greenish gray.._  
She continued. "you're not going to get any answers if you pass out."  
Even though het voice shook, it was the only stable thing i could focus on. It was the only thing keeping me sane.  
I nobbed and closed my eyes. Breathing was still difficult, but the world was smaller with my eyes closed. I could almost pretend I wasn't trapped in this prison.  
"what is your name?"  
"To-by" I panted.  
"Toby..." she repeated. "My name is Jane. Shh... "  
She rubbed her hand across my back. I never knew how much I needed a nurturing touch.  
I leaned into her touch and took a shaky breath.  
She told me I was going to be okay, she told me that everything was going to fine.  
Maybe it was how her gentle voice reminded me of Hoodie's or how she said it with such conviction that it reminded me of masky, that I believed her.  
I could breathe now.  
I opened my eyes and looked her over. Underneath the grime that covered her, she was beautiful.  
"Are you okay now?" she pulled her hand away.  
The edges of my lips twitched with dismay at the loss of her touch.  
"Yeah." I rubbed a hand over my face. "I'll be fine."  
"Tom put a bell on your foot so you couldn't try and run away. He won't take it off..." she swallowed back her nurves "He won't take it off until you give up on trying to escape... Like the rest of us."  
I felt my eyes darken.  
 _That will NEVER happen._  
I ask "There are more people trapped here?"  
"yes, five of us in all now... There was more, but... They're gone now." her voice shook at the end of her sentence.  
"He killed them?" I suddenly felt annoyed despite my circumstances.  
 _Of course he was a murder too. Why else would he kidnap me?_  
"um." she casually wiped a tear from her face. "yeah, sometimes they-they take us to the barn and... Um. They uh-do things to us...sometimes we don't make it back."  
I was about to ask who 'they' were, but maybe jane picked up on my sudden annoyance.  
"Cheryl and Tom. Cheryl runs the things around here and her husband Tom does what she tells him too."  
I remember the old lady I saw on the street a few days ago.  
That must have been Cheryl. Her crooked brown teeth and thin white hair were burned into my memory.  
I buried my face in my hands.  
I knew something was wrong then. I should have tried harder to convene hoodie that something was wrong. Maybe he would have done something. Maybe they'd make me stay inside, maybe I'd hate them for keeping me indoors, but I wouldn't be here. I would be with sally, or lying on the couch with jeff and Ben. I wouldn't be gone.  
I see now how hard they tried to keep me safe. I loved them for it. They protected me from zalgo and everything he released into our world, every master drug dealer, solder, and victim they were sent to deal with.  
Out of... everything that could have taken me away from them it was a sadistic couple who kidnapped children to fill their needs with whatever sick thing I was going to face.  
Maybe i was looking at this the wrong way.  
They won't have a problem dealing with these people.  
It was almost funny.  
I smiled.  
 _Tom's name is only one letter off from tim. Isn't it funny that my kidnapper almost has your name, masky?_  
"Toby?" jane reached out to touch me.  
I lifted my head and smiled at her  
"It's okay. I'm not going to die here."


	3. Chapter 2- suffocating

I was almost asleep when my door creaked opened one night. The sound of small foot steps carefully crossing my wooden floor pulled me awake.  
I knew it was sally even before she climbed onto my bed.  
I kept my eyes closed as I waited for her to settle in, but instead I felt her small finger poke my cheek.  
"toby." she whispered.  
"hm?" I lifted my head and found her in the darkness. Her eyes were wide and her lips were parted slightly with fear. I pulled myself up.  
"...What's wrong? Did you have that dream again?"  
She shook her head and crawled into my lap.  
"you really scared me, where did you go? I thought zalgo took you." she whispered angerly.  
I could vaguely see the welts of her now angry tears on her cheeks as my eyes adjusted in the darkness.  
"What? no, I... I" I started past the ball of guilt that resided in my throat.  
 _No one was supposed to know..._  
 _Did she tell masky and hoodie?_  
I swallowed tightly.  
She pushed her head into my chest and wiped her tears onto my shirt and stayed there.  
"you're heart is beating really hard" she said against my chest. She looked up at me with a smile. "don't worry I haven't told anyone... yet"  
"yet?"  
"yet."  
I narrowed my eyes at her.  
"are you blackmailing me?"  
She only smiled.  
"do you realize if they found out I'd never be able to leave this house again?"  
"yep." she chirped.  
I scooped her up and set her off my lap. "what do you want?"  
"I just want to know where you went." she tilted her head in a slight pout.  
I brushed a single remaining tear off her cheek and frowned.  
"I just needed to get out... I'm never allowed to leave and its driving me insane. I can't stand being stuck here."  
"I know..." she looked down.  
The guilt hardened in my chest once i realized how stupid it was for me to say that to her.  
Unlike her, I had a choice to leave or not.  
Sally's existence rested on a thin line. She couldn't live through what I could, she couldn't break a bone because it would never fix itself. She can't cut her finger because it would never stop bleeding. She was like a glass doll being held together with glue. She was fragile and needed to be treated like it. Zalgo gave her life, frozen youth, and breathtaking beauty that resembled a porcelain doll.  
But her, jack, and ben were each given different gifts and curses with their unnatural lives, but they all shared something in common. Their freedom was stripped from them. Zalgo owned them all, and he was more than willing to take them back to the underworld the moment they strayed to far away from slender's territory.  
 _She can't leave._  
Sally smacked my forehead with the palm of her hand, forcing me to snap out of my thoughts.  
"Don't be guilty, Toby. I like it here." She crawled back into my lap and nestled into me. "but don't run off again, or I'll tell on you next time I catch you."  
 _'Catch' was the key word._  
I smiled slyly.  
"Sure thing... "  
She picked up her head and glared at me with an unamused pout.  
"Toby, I mean it. I rather jeff die than you."  
That only widened my smile more.  
"Has jeff been getting under you skin lately?"  
She rolled her eyes.  
"He's all butt hurt because I hid the remote!" She flinched at the loudness of her voice. We held our breaths and listened for hint of disturbance outside my room.  
After a moment sally's round eyes fell back onto me. "I wouldn't have hid it if he would let someone else use the TV for a change." she wispered grumpily.  
I smiled at her, but didn't say anything.  
She yawned and nestled back into my chest.  
"I know what happened yesterday. I heard masky tell jack when he was fixing your cut... You're pretty dumb, Toby."  
I narrowed my eyes "you were easedropping?"  
She pulled open an eye briefly before letting it fall shut.  
"...Only a little... I was worried. I wish slender wouldn't force you to go with them..."  
 _Not you too..._  
 _"_ I knew what I was doing." I lied.  
Her hands tightened on my shirt and she shoved her face harder against me.  
When she fell silent I knew that she was crying.  
I panicked.  
"Sally I-"  
"you're my only friend, Toby. I don't want you to die." she whimpered.  
"you... Have jack... " I pointed out dumbly.  
I wasn't sure how to make her stop crying. She was the only girl I knew... It wasn't like this was a skill that I developed.  
She shook her head and let go of my shirt.  
"He doesn't like me anymore. He's always too busy in the infirmary or with slendy to talk to me. I don't think he even thinks about me now.. " she hiccuped.  
"Sally, I'm pretty sure you're the only person he really loves."  
 _If love was anything like the way I feel for her, jack, masky and hoodie-everyone. I knew jack wouldn't just stop caring about her because he was busy. He would drop everything and kill for her if he had too._  
Sally sniffed and leaned back, her brown curls still hanging in her face.  
"I don't believe you." she whiped her cheek with a green striped sleeve.  
"Maybe you should become someone's meat shield... That's how I got masky's attention." I joked.  
She glared at me again.  
"That's stupid. I'm not going to do that!"  
I laughed.  
"Then maybe you should just talk to him."  
She crossed her arms over her small chest.  
"Maybe you're on to something... Maybe you should take your own advice."  
"yeah right." I broaden my shoulders and stuck out my chest "I live on the edge! How many people can say they survived a gun to the head and a angry masky?"  
"Oh wow toby, you're so amazing!" sally played along sarcastically.  
My partially opened door creak open. Ben stood on the other side of it, looking as if he was a phantom of sleep.  
"Hey..." Ben said tiredly "Can you two be quite? It's kinda late.. "  
"Sorry"  
"Sorry, ben."  
We said in unison.  
After ben shut the door, sally turned back to me. Her eyes pleading.  
"Toby, I mean it. Promise me you won't get yourself killed." she whispered.  
I opened my mouth to deflect her statement, but i found myself staring down at her pleading eyes, and tear washed face and my heart ached for her.  
"I... I promise..."

...

I paced the length of the cell, the bell on my foot scraped against the cement with every limp I took.  
 _There had to be a way out of here! I need to get out! How long are they going to trap me in this box?_  
For hours I've surveyed and mapped out every inch of the four walls that confined me. I picked and scratched at every imperfection in the cement, hoping that I could find enough crumbling stone to break through. I shoved and pulled at the rusty metal door too many times to count.  
I yelled and screamed for someone to let me out.  
I was beyond desperate.  
Despite all my efforts, there was no magical doorway to set me free, no one came to my calls, the door remained shut and I remand trapped.  
I pulled at my hair and dropped to my knees.  
 _There was no way out._  
I gasped at how overwhelmingly my terror hit me.  
I _knew_ there was no way out from the very beginning, but I wasn't going to let myself-now I can't handle-I can't handle feeling this.  
It was suffocating me.  
I took another sharp gasp, trying to feed my starving lungs.  
I stared at the dust covered floor.  
Gray on top of gray.  
 _What am I supposed to do, masky? I can't get out! There's no way out! how am I supposed to know what to do? How am I supposed to know what you and hoodie do if you were here-?_  
I stopped breathing.  
 _You... Wouldn't be panicking._  
I squeezed my eyes shut hard enough to see white and focused on breathing.  
 _Panicking was only stopping me from thinking clearly, I need to think. I need to calm down and think. You're not here to do it for me. I have to think of something myself now, I just need time..._  
I stayed crouched down on the floor with my head in my hands and forced myself to breathe.  
 _Just breathe-_  
It took a few minutes, but after I was finally calm enough to hold a steady breath I turned to jane. She still sat on the bed with her knees to her chest and her frail arms rapped tightly around them.  
She watched me quietly the entire time I paced the cell. She didn't try to comfort me when I was on the verge of suffocating.  
She respected my demand to be left alone.  
And I was thankful for that.  
"jane." I said. Her sunken in eyes widened briefly with surprise. "How long have you been here?"  
"I... "her eyes drifted away from me as she trailed off.  
 _Sally does this too when she thinks..._  
I thought with a dull ache.  
She finished "I... Don't know. Over a year... It's hard to know for sure."  
My heart dropped in my chest  
 _Oh god no..._  
I could feel the panic settling back in. I quickly scanned the room for anything that could distract me.  
 _A year... An entire year away from-my family-them! It could be longer-so much longer-_  
Just as I was going to give up, I finally spotted a small sliver of hope.  
A single blade of dried grass laying idly against the hard gray floor.  
I let my eyes shift over the blade to the next, and the next.  
The floor was dusted with bits and peaces of dried grass every other step.  
It suddenly clicked in my mind.  
"T-the mud on you. They let you outside?" I couldn't hide the hope and excitement from my voice.  
Jane shifted on the bed causing its springs to squeak.  
"Y-yes... To work on the farm, why?" she tried to hide the dirt on her knees.  
 _Farming has tools... Tools I need._  
"When are they letting us out?"  
"Not until tomorrow... It's almost dinner time..." her eyebrows were furrowed with concern.  
I was already starting to lose my concept of time here. I didn't know if it was day or night or how long I've been here. It was night when Tom took me... I remember that clearly. It was day when they dumped me in here... Could an entire day pass without me realizing it?  
 _A entire day wasted. A day I should be home._  
This only angered me and made me more anxious to get out.  
There was a clack of metal down the hall of our room.  
"What was that?" I limped towards the door, trying to fight back the new glimmer of hope I carried.  
"Tom is bring us our food."  
That killed my hope before it had a chance to live.  
 _I don't want food! I want out!_  
I growled with bitter annoyance and leaned down to peer through the rectangle hole in the door that I knew he was going to slide the food through.  
I could see his plaid shirt through the slot. His backside was towards me. He was sliding a metal tray of vegetables through the door across from ours. My mind was overcome with a sick hatred at the sight of him.  
He turned to our door and my mind went wild with the need to hurt him.  
Bearing my teeth, I reached through the opening and grabbed his arm and pulled it through the slot with all of the strength my rage allowed me gather. His body hit the door with a loud thump and a tray of food crashed against the floor.  
Tom pulled his arm back and I let him go, daring him to open the door-daring him to set me free.  
"Toby!" jane gasped in tearful terror.  
Two clicks of a lock and the door flew open.  
Tom was much bigger than anyone I ever seen before. His white buzzed cut head almost touched the top of the doorway and his body bulged with both the mass of muscle and fat.  
His nostrils flared with rage and his lips were pressed into a thin line.  
Jane pressed herself against the wall with a hand over her mouth and wide watery eyes.  
 _She was afraid... But I wasn't. This. Was. War._  
Tom shoved the door against the wall and came for me. I grabbed the arm that was intended to hurt me and pulled him away from the doorway and deeper into the cell. In one swift motion I twisted his arm enough to bring him down to my level and swung my elbow to the side of his face.  
He only stumbled back a few steps, but that was enough.  
I shot through the doorway at full speed, fully knowing that the only reason I stood a chance against him was because he didn't expect me to put up a fight.  
Masky only taught me defense. He wanted to make sure I was able to protect myself when he wasn't around. But he didn't want to give me a reason to put myself in danger by teaching me how to hurt someone. I was okay with that. I didn't need it then.  
I needed it now.  
Even with the training I had, i was no where near confident with my ability. I only knew a hand full of moves and they could only do so much to help me.  
I didn't need to go far from my cell to see the stars through a wide open hatch just above a short stairway ahead of me.  
A moment of desperation and longing broke through the rage inside me as my eyes locked onto the stars.  
 _Freedom_  
My vision became tunneled as I ran up the stairs taking two steps at a time, stumbling and briefly using my hands to help push myself up each step-anything to help me get _out._  
The air become open as I broke free from the under the earth.  
My foot was pulled back and I fell into the jagged grass.  
I twisted around and tried to pull my foot free from whatever caught it, only to realize that tom had lunged and grabbed the bell dragging my foot.  
 _No!_  
"Let go of me!" I tired to kick him free. He grabbed ahold of my feet and pulled me towards him.  
 _No!_  
Tom climbed up the rest of the stairs, seeming to grow to his full hight right before my eyes.  
I tugged at my food again trying for my life to break free from the bell, not caring that breaking free from it means losing the use of my foot.  
Tom shoved a large hand onto my chest crushing my lungs. He hit me across the face with a closed fist with the other.  
I gasped at the impact.  
I've never been hit by anything so hard.  
My vision was dark and my ears rang.  
He hit me again and again until I slipped from consciousness.  
Only for a moment...I thought I'd make it.  
I was dazed trying to blink away the speks of light and darkness that blinded me. I tried to hear past the sound of my breathing.  
I opened my mouth to make sure I _was_ still breathing.  
I could vaguely hear the sound of the cowbell dangling off my foot.  
A playful sound tanted by death.  
Little by little and piece by piece I could make out the blood dripping down down rusty cowbell and... The cellar hatch getting further and futher away from me with each step that wasn't mine...  
I realized Tom was carrying me away from the cellar on his sholder.  
I began to lift myself up, before I realized my hands where tied tightly behind me.  
My heart beat rapidity against my ribbs.  
 _How_ _did he do this? When?_  
 _I cant-i need my hands to-no!_  
A golden glow caught my attention and I looked up. A wooden barn was directly in front of us. Through its boards I could see the warm light from inside.  
 _What is he doing? Why is he bringing me here?_  
He threw open the wooden door. The bang that caused the boards to rattle sent clumps of dust to fall from somewhere above.  
Tom dropped me carelessly onto the dirt.  
I couldn't keep the beams of wood above me from swaying even with my eyes closed.  
It made me sick.  
I heard the door slam shut at my feet and I knew I was trapped again.  
A groan of anguish escaped through my beard teeth.  
 _No! I was so close!_  
"oh no... " a creaky voice pouted ahead of me. "Is this our new one? Did he try to get away?"  
I tried to lifted my head up to see her, but I was to weak from whatever damage Tom did to me.  
"Just let me go!" I snapped and tried to force my hands free from whatever they were tied with.  
Thin, sharp...unbreakable.  
I allowed my head to drop back against the dirt floor, breathing heavily.  
Dust and hay moved away from my mouth with every ragged breath I took.  
I was ignored and Tom didn't respond to her question, but it didn't seem Cheryl expected him to.  
I watched Cheryl drop the metal ladl into a homemade cauldron that resided in a makeshift fireplace and turned to us.  
 _She was cooking in here. She boiled the vegetables she served to us in that pot. Why? Why here?_  
Cheryl pulled her apron off and set it quickly onto a metal table next to her.  
"Oh my sweet, sweet Tom!" she padded past me to her husband. "Did he hurt you?"  
I craned my head around to see the late aged couple. Cheryl was on her toes with her hand gingerly on Tom's cheek. Almost as if she was trying not to break the indestructible oversized man before me.  
A large welt formed on Tom's stoic face.  
I dropped my head again and smiled sickly against the dirt.  
"Oh, the new ones always try to run. Don't be angry. We just need to teach him, my dear. He will be a good boy soon."  
 _We'll see about that._  
"Bring him over here, sweety" she said lovingly as she walked past me.  
I felt tom reach down and grab me by the bondings he had my hands tied with and lift me up.  
I lowed my eyes as he walked me to the table Cheryl waited Patiently by.  
I felt sick. The table was more reflective than anything I've seen here.  
An shining trophy amongst starving and broken bodies.  
I could see my blurry reflection in its scratched metal surface. The right side of my face was already bruising with a deep shade of red and purple and my nose was leaking dark blood.  
 _Was this what a broken nose was? Jeff always threatened to give me one. Would he find it funny that I finally had one?_  
 _No. He wouldn't. Not at all._  
"Sit here sweety." Cheryl pat the table warmly. I knew her caring smile was just an act. I've seen her smile, sick and twisted like her.  
I didn't move. Not even when Tom shoved me toward her.  
I stayed put.  
I wasn't going to sit down and allow her to hurt me. She was going to have to break me down before I gave her the satisfaction.  
The wood in the fireplace cracked, splitting the silence that grew tensely around us.  
"Stand if you want." Cheryl finally sighed. "It does not bother me." she stepped towards me and I instinctually backed up causing Tom to slam his hands tightly onto my shoulders.  
"You know... " She cooed. "Awful things happen to boys who don't play nice. I could cut off those hands of yours for what you did to my poor Tom. We wouldn't have this problem again, now would we?"  
"I wouldn't have a problem getting out of this either." I tugged my wrist. "Why don't you cut my foot off while you're at it?"  
Her smile grew sour.  
"I see we have a mouthy one. You're only making this harder on yourself." she said in disgust.  
"You're not the first person who said this to me." I smiled cockily.  
Jeff said that to me man times before in the earliest days I knew him.  
"It appears they didn't make due with their promise."  
She was wrong. He did. Multiple times. It just turns out that hurting me wasn't a very effective way to teach me a lesson.  
Though I didn't expect her to know that.  
She continued. "You must be a very lucky boy, because I won't give you the punishment you deserve. I am very fortunate to find you. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth and break you before I can play with you."  
My heart sunk.  
"W-what are you talking about? What do you-"  
"shhh... " She placed a long finger nail over my lips.  
I froze.  
"You are a very fine boy..." she slowly moved her hand and placed it on my swollen cheek. "Attractive, healthy, strong." she ran her other hand up my arm and over my chest.  
I winced at her touch and swallowed tightly.  
"Most young boys do not have such a... strong build. You are exceptional.. Your brothers were a treat to see too, strong and handsome like you. Lucky for them I prefer the younger ones."  
I gritted my teeth.  
 _She didn't have the right to speak about them!_  
"No." I growled "Lucky for you I'm not like them! They would have killed you if you even tried to lay a hand on them!"  
"Oh!" she pulled her hand back excitedly. "You know the rules! Good boys don't kill little old ladies. There is a difference between me and everyone else out there. I can get away with it." she ran her hand over my jaw "How could a 70 year old woman and her humble husband be responsible for those poor missing children?"  
"You are the most pretentious-!"  
Her hand slapped over my mouth.  
"I'm not done! On our little trip to Cadence, We saw you there with your brothers. I knew I had to have you. I knew I wanted you here. You were perfect for what I needed you for. But, unfortunately you disappeared. Three days we searched for you. _Three days_ I wasted trying to find you! Just as we were about leave and go back to our little farm, you ran right in front of us!" she thew her hands up in over empathized amazement. "Do you know what that means?"  
I didn't answer.  
"This was destiny! You are my gift from the universe! You are all _mine!"_  
"You are insane!"  
Cheryl dropped her hands and smiled at me sweetly.  
"Oh sweety, Name calling isn't nice. You're going to have to learn to be nicer since you're going to be here for a very. long. time." she sang. "Tommy dear, why don't you cut those things off of him? That looks...very painful."  
Anxiety tightened my chest.  
 _I think I wanted these on..._  
Cheryl turned from me and picked up a log that sat in a stack by the fireplace.  
When tom hesitated she said "Do not worry, my love. He won't hurt me."  
 _No, I'm not that stupid. I rather get out of here alive._  
I felt a tug on my wrist and then a snapping sound.  
A pair of green and red zip ties dropped onto the floor behind me.  
I rubbed my wrist anxiously.  
"Now, you did a very bad thing today. What you did had very... deadly consequences." she tossed the log into the fire. It crashed into the embers causing them to flow into the air. "But as we discussed, I will look the other way. We just need to make sure this won't happen again." she watched the embers glow into a small flame. "you know, this is my favorite spot. I love to cook for all my children-"  
"Will you just shut up and do it already?" I snapped with all the bravado I could muster. It was quickly fading out into a crushing amount of fear. Waiting for her to do whatever she wants to me was killing me.  
She snarled at me.  
"After all I've given to you, after I gave you a new home and slaved over a broiling pot to give you a healthy meal-this is how you speak to me?" she slammed her hand on the table harder than I imagined she could.  
The sound she created was hard enough for me to flinch back.  
Back against Tom.  
Tom grabbed my forearm and threw me dowm to the fireplace. I choked against the sudden sight of flames to close to my face and drug my free hand into the ground and fought to pull away from the glowing embers.  
"Stop!" I yelled "what are you doing? Stop!"  
I was unable to fight Tom from shoving my hand into the pot.  
"Can't you feel it?" Cheryl sang "This is how it feels to slave away for you ungrateful children! Can you feel the love and motivation I put in for you? My _burning_ passion? Can't you just feel it?" she yelled. "After all I given to you! You turn around and break my heart!-'"  
"Stop!" I begged.  
I couldn't feel the heat... The _pain,_ but I knew what it was doing to me. It was hurting me. It was hurting me to a degree that I couldn't understand... A degree that I could never understand. A degree that could possibly kill me without jack to mend it. As far as I knew every wound I gained was foretelling the end of my life...  
I was afraid to die.  
So very afraid.  
Tom shoved my hand deeper into the pot and I squeezed my eyes shut hoping that they'd stop, hoping that the embers will go away, hoping that I will wake up in my room tangled in my sheets and with sally hogging my bed.  
The red embers still glowed in front of my eyes and I couldn't stand it.  
I reached into the fireplace and grabbed a burning log and swing blindly into Toms face. The log broke apart on impact, sending embers and ash across the two of us  
Tom cried out in pain and released me for only a moment.  
In desperation I took that moment and tried to get to my feet.  
Tried to run-  
But Tom had my arm again.  
He grabbed my arm with two large hands and-  
SNAP  
There was a rippling wave of shock that shot through me at the sound of my arm.  
I was completely frozen with terror.  
Pale, stiff, blank faced, unresponsive.  
They must have waited for me to scream in pain.  
But I didn't  
 _What did he do to my arm?_  
They waited for me to realize that I was hurt, to run, or to break down.  
 _I can't move my fingers!_  
But I didn't.  
I waited for someone to wake me up from this surreal nightmare.  
But they didn't.


	4. Chapter 3- Reality Call

p dir="ltr"The rusty door slammed closed with a gut wrenching bang. br /The sudden explosion of sound bounced off the stony walls over and over /It was taunting me. br /It told me that I was back where I /It told me I was here /It told me that I /I didn't move-I didn't breathe until the echo subsided and I could hear the hatch swung shut outside. br /emSilence.../embr /Tom was gone. br /Slowly, I curled on my side on the cell floor and stared at my swollen and limp /It looked all wrong...br /My skin was swollen and pink, forming shiny red blisters and white welts just under the skin. br /My fingers curled slightly, paralyzed and unmoving and my wrist rested awkwardly against my arm. br /emThis was wrong./embr /The sound of my bone splitting between Tom's hands made my stomach turn. br /I buried my chin into my chest and curled into a tight ball, careful not to move my arm. br /I could hear them all. br /My /Their voices taunted me with every insult I heard from the people I love. br /The people I will never see again...br /emDumbass, idiot, insubordinate, stupid, dummy, mistake./embr /I should have never tried to leave them. I should've ran back to their calls and hung onto them until the danger was gone. I should have apologized to them and told them how much I missed them. br /emThey would have escaped by now. /embr /emI'm such a screw up/emem./embr /emI miss them so much... /embr /The bed squeaked behind me and I could feel her hand on my /Soft and gentle, nothing like my family of killer men who touched me /I closed my eyes. br /"Toby, are you okay? Where are you hurt? G-get up!" her voice was still shaking. "Can you talk? please look at me-"br /She was still awake after all this time... br /Semhe waited for me/em...br /I didn't look at her though. I couldn't bare to see the tears she cried for me. I couldn't bare the knowing look she would give me. I couldn't bare to hear the 'I told you so' sally always said to me after I've done something stupid. br /Jane hunch over me, her body casting a dark shadow over my closed eyes. br /I was grateful for this. The artificial white light was driving itself into my head and killing my desire to be /"I-I thought they were going to kill you... I don't understand how...You're okay..." she trailed off when she saw my arm and leaned back. br /I swallowed tightly and moved my arm closer to me. br /emI messed up. /embr /She gently placed a hand over the swollen bruise growing on the side of my face. br /I could feel her /"You're okay... It's going to be okay... " she /I closed my eyes. br /emNo... No I wasn't... I wasn't going to be okay./embr /emI will never be okay. /em/p  
p dir="ltr"-br /Sally cried earlier that day. We had found a dead rabbit on the side of the road. She told me she's seen the rabbit run by a few times and she named it twiddles on account for its twisted foot. br /She insisted that we needed to bury it, but I didn't understand why. br /"You bury someone you love after they die." she had told me. "That's the only way they can be at peace."br /"why?" I askedbr /She looked at me then, with wide green eyes and delicate pink lips in the shape of an 'O'.br /"Do you know what happens to a body when it's left alone?"br /"No." I said. br /She smiled. em"Dummy."/embr /emShe never told me the answer./embr /That was a few hours ago now. br /I sat hunched over on my bed picking away the earth that was now packed under my finger /Masky and hoodie found us after we buried the animal. br /Of course Masky was /emLike he'd be anything else. /embr /We fought about it like we have so many times before and it left me here. In my room, waiting for one of them to come and collect me for our /I knew it was dangerous to take sally with me, but she threatened to tell masky and hoodie if I left without her. br /I realize now that it was a waste of time. They had no problem finding out that I was missing in the middle of the day... But I wasn't willing to risk taking her in the black of night. br /emProtect her. /embr /I gave up on trying to pick the dirt out and leaned back into my /My familiar ceiling was a blank canvas for my /emOnly way to be at peace.../embr /This was eating at my mind all day. br /I felt sick remembering the handfull of dirt splash onto the rabbits brown fur. br /Grainy, dark mud covering the soft fur over and over until it was completely hidden from the light of day. br /emOnly way it could be at peace... /embr /"Toby?" hoodie tapped on my door before opening it. br /He wore the jacket and gear that he normally wore on missions. His mask was bunched up in his gloved hand that held my silver /emAlmost time to go./embr /em"/emyeah." I answered his question before he even had a chance to /emAre you ready?/embr /Hoodie smiled and leaned against my door frame. br /"Are you still upset about earlier?"br /emYes./embr /I didn't /Hoodie ran a hand over his face suddenly /"Toby..." he let out a breath "We just don't want you getting hurt, okay? You don't understand how the world works. It's dangerous for someone like you."br /I lowered my eyes and set up. br /emSomeone like me.. /embr /emStill different, dosen't fit, doesn't belong, shouldn't exist, shouldn't be here. /embr /My shoulders shank with the heavy stone in my heart. br /I wasn't mad at that... Of course i wasn't. br /I know they were only looking out for me. The reason I was angry was because I hated how closely they watched me. I hated how they always seemed to emstrongknow/strong/em when I was trying to get a glimpse of /I was angry because I was trapped /I had no /I shook my /We argued about this too many times before and i knew it was pointless at this point. br /"Why do we have to leave so early? It's the middle of the day. "br /Hoodie picked up on the bitterness in my voice and let himself in my room. br /"You know why. " he sat down on the edge of my bed and eyed me from the corner of his eye. "We have a long way to go and little time to get there."br /I pulled my knees to my chest to give him more room. br /"It's just so far away... What if something happens-how will you- "I was overwhelmed with anxiety. br /I've never been so far away for so long. br /It terrified me. br /New sights, new sounds, new faces, new thungs br /emNew world. /embr /If something happens will I ever come home again? Will this be the last time I see my room again, will masky and hoodie be okay? Would they lay me to rest like the rabbit we buried? br /Was that something they even do? They left E. G's body alone that /The thought of being buried off somewhere- the thought of them strongnot/strong burying me and leaving me, the thought of my body doing what ever sally was talking about, filled me with anxiety. br /"You and masky left that guy's body on the ground. The one with the gun." I bit at the nail on my middle finger. "Why didn't you bury him?"br /Hoodie suddenly looked uncomfortable. He looked down at his hands and began fiddling with his glove. br /"Burying someone is pretty personal, Toby. It takes a lot of time, energy, emotional strain..." he paused, thinking of how to explain this concept to me. " Once we do what we were sent to do, Slender deals with the mess. He does what ever he does with the body and we don't question him about it... I don't know if the bodies are buried or not, but a burial is traditionally for the victims family to put their loved ones to rest." br /That made sense. Masky and Hoodie never had a reason to bury anyone. They didn't care about the body they were leaving /But...br /"Would you and masky bury me? Or would slender take me away too?"br /"What?" The question startled him. He finally looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed with concern and confusion. "What kind of question is that?" br /Masky appeared in the doorway then, most likely to tell us that we needed to leave, but stopped when he saw hoodies /"I-I just had a dream about it and just wanted to know" I admitted quickly. I hadn't had a night where I didn't see that creepy woman's face. br /Knowing we were heading back in that direction only made the dreams worse. br /"You... Had a dream that you...died?" hoodie questioned slowly. "Have you had any other dreams like this before?"br /I /The amount of concern on his face was enough to make me rethink my entire life. br /Hoodie shared a concerned look with masky from across my room and something clicked between /emUnderstanding./embr /"Are you feeling okay?" Masky quickly crossed my room and laid a hand across my forehead. "You look pale."br /I pulled away, taken back by his sudden actions. "I'm fine-"br /"You have a fever." br /"No i don't-" br /It was hoodie's turn to touch my face br /"-defiantly a fever"br /I pushed his hand away "Stop. You're wearing gloves! It doesn't work like that-!"br /"looks like you need to stay home, little brother. " masky stood up. br /"And we were looking forward for you to come along with us too. That's a shame." hoodie played /"What are you talking about?" I grabbed hoodie's arm and tied to stop him from leaving, he only just pulled me off the /emUnstoppable./embr /"I'm sorry you're sick, toby." masky was saying "we'll be thinking about you while you're safe at home."br /"I'm telling you-!" I stopped, dumbfounded. "Wait." I followed them down the hall "That was a joke! You just made a joke!"br /Hoodie smiled genuinely and shook his head. br /"Tha' poor thing is delusional."br /I rushed down the stairs with them, practically two steps behind them with every two steps I took. br /emI always hated how fast they walk. /embr /Ben was at the bottom of the stairs holding a plate of wings. He stumbled back clutching his plate as we stampeded by. br /"hey, what's going on here?" he smiled /They didn't even bother to stop and talk to him. br /"Tobys sick" hoodie /I opened my mouth to argue with them when ben said; br /"Oh, sucks man." and winked at me. br /I stumbled over myself, somehow losing the ability to walk and talk at the same /That's all the time it took for the front door to close, cutting me off from masky and hoodie and leaving me inside with the others. br /emThat was the last time I saw them... /embr /I pulled myself to my feet and rushed to the door. br /I didn't open it. br /I knew better than to chase after them and waste their time, but it was still an on going battle in my head. br /emI'm not sick. I know im not. How could they just leave me like that? Why do they want me away from them so badly? What did I do wrong? /embr /The confusion subsided into a lost and dark feeling of grief as I waited for them to come /I waited... and /The door remained shut. br /I slowly grabbed my chest trying to ease the grief iside. br /"hey." jeff looked over to me from behind his arm that rested on the back of the couch. "Are you going to stand there and sulk all day or what?" br /emYes/embr /I ignored him and leaned against the window next to the /I kept thinking of how long they were going to be gone this time. I kept thinking about how I've never been away from them for so long. I was wondering what i was going to do without them. br /"Toby, bro." ben eventually settled next to me "This is hella boring. They are going to be gone for-like what? A week? How long are you going to sit here?"br /"A week." I said dully. br /Jeff stood up from the couch. His spine popped as he lifted his arms in a stretch. br /"look bud." he scratched the stubble on his face and took his time walking to me. "It's almost been a year since you showed up here. I get that you're 'recovering' from your creepy satan inflicted amnesia-" I snorted and rolled my eyes when he referred to slender as satan "And I get that you really like those assholes, but they've been keeping you from a lot of the good stuff about this shitty world." his thin lips curled into a daring smile. br /I looked him over. br /emWas he serious? /embr /"Like... What?" I asked slowly. br /I trusted Masky and Hoodie with every bit of information I had.  
They wouldn't lie to me about it. That's why slender gave them to me...br /"They won't let us show you any of the emgood /emstuff. Those two are so uptight over you that they won't even think about letting you live a little."br /Jeff rapped an arm around me and gave me a tight squeeze. "but they aren't here to stop you now, huh?"br /I gave him a lookbr /"what are you talking about?"br /"oh you'll see, little buddy. You'll see. Tonight, we're gonna have some fun."br /-br /em*/ememstrongThump*/strong/embr /I opened my /My right eye was tightly swollen shut. A black-red fog covered a half of my view as I gazed into the blinding white light. br /That was the first thing I realized as I came too. br /The next thing was that Jane was sitting just above me head... Asleep. br /Her frail body was curled into tight ball and her cheek was pressed hard against the wall. br /A few heart beats and I remembered who she /emAngel. /embr /I lowered my brows in /emWhy was she sleeping here? /embr /It was strange to see someone who willingly chooses to sleep in discomfort when they were only given a single luxury of a bed. br /em"I don't want you to be alone."/embr /She had told me at some point during the night. br /There was a sound of hallowed metal against wood down the hall. br /It was a light sound that I would have easily ignored /Now the sound was enough to wake the instincts in my body. br /Tom was in the /emDanger./embr /I lifted myself from the ground, feeling the scratchy blanket fall off my /My movement was enough to pull Jane from her slumber. br /Her timid eyes were already wide with alarm and her lips parted with a small gasp. br /It was almost as if she forgot I was in this cell with her. br /"W-what are you doing?" she /"What is he doing down here?" I didn't bother whispering. I didn't care if Tom heard me or not. br /"Who?" she quickly scanned me with her eyes as if i was supposed have what ever was scaring her on my back. br /"Tom. I heard him. He's down here." almost as if it was on Que, Tom banged on the cell door next to /Three loud bangs carried down the hall. br /She didn't seemed surprised by him doing this. br /"How did you..?"br /Two louder, heavier, bangs on our /Jane quickly rose to her feet and I pulled myself away from the door, practically tripping over the bell that lagged behind my sudden movement. br /Two clicks of the lock and the door opens. br /Tom towers on the other side. His plaid shirt was replaced by a plane white one which he had tucked into his jeans. br /His lips were pressed in a thin line and his eyes blazed at the sight of me. br /He reminded me of a stereotypical drill Sargent that I've seen on TV... Only there was a large blistering bruise that stood out on the side of his face. br /It was art against an ugly sight that I have /I smiled at this. br /emAn eye for an eye. /embr /I expected him to try to hurt me or drag me out of this cell, but he only stared at me for a moment longer than necessary and turned to open a cell directly across from ours. br /I looked over to Jane in /She gently placed a hand on my shoulder, her eyes /emDon't./embr /They /A little boy cautiously steps from the cell the moment Tom turns to open the next cell. His eyes are weary like Jane's, but wide with curious amazement as he looks for the new person he heard the night /His eyes fall on me and I hold his gaze. br /emOh god... /embr /This child was younger than Sally... br /His cheeks were hallow and sharp, not at all the way a child's cheeks should be. He was pale and sickly shinny. His messy black hair hung over his eyes in tangled /It killed me how easily I saw sally in him. br /Jane stepped out of the cell and I followed subconsciously. br /Two other doors are opened and two others stepped out into the short walk way, their eyes quickly landing on /emSomeone/em embrand new,/embr /emSomeone loud!/embr /emSomeone big,/embr /emSomeone like jane!/embr /I stood over them. Taller and stronger than /I am motionless as the realization of it all sinks in. br /emI am in a child farm. /em/p 


	5. Chapter 4- Free For All

p dir="ltr"strongI know I'm late with this chapter, I'm sorry for that. This is what I have done so far. The rest of the chapter will be up soon. Again, I'm sorry. /strongbr /strong-/strongstrongstrong-/strong/strongstrongstrongstrong-/strong/strong/strongstrongstrongstrongstrong-/strong/strong/strong/strong/p  
p dir="ltr""I think I'm sick." I mumbled against the bark of a tree. br /I was clinging onto a tall oak tree, using it to keep me upright until I /Jeff and Ben were laughing too hard to hear me. br /They were laughing at the way I choked on the puff they made me take from a joint. They were laughing at the face I made at its taste, the way I stumbled away from them while I coughed /I blinked my eyes forcefully, trying to stop the familiar trees from rocking back and forth. br /I could feel it. br /The vile rising from my stomach. I could feel the waves and waves of sick rushing through me, each one worst than the last. br /I cluched my stomach and shoved my head against the tree. br /This feeling was awful. br /I just wanted it to stop. I wanted the sick to stay down and go /Even though I didn't understand what was happening, my body must have known. br /A quick natural /I threw up. br /Jeff and Ben stopped laughing /"Oh shit" they said. br /The leaves crunched and shifted as they jumped to their feet. br /I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to swallow back the waves that were threatening to make me go through that horrible experience of vomiting /No matter how many times I tried to force it down, it came. br /The liquor tasted just as horrible coming up as it did going down. br /"Just let it out, bud." jeff patted my back with little very /I coughed and spat out the taste from my mouth. br /My legs shook violently from this ordeal and i was too dizzy to hold myself up. I rested my body weight againat the poor tree who witnessed it all. br /emI hated this. I hated this so much. /embr /I could hear Ben take a drag off of the joint before he asked, "You okay, bro?" br /I shook my head and whipped my mouth with my sleeve. br /"No, I think I'm going to die." I gasped. br /This sent them into another laughing fit. br /"Oh, Toby." Jeff sang after he partially recovered. "you're a fucking light weight! Four shots," he raised four long fingers in my face. I squinted to focus them. "and you already can't remember your fucking grandmother's name!"br /"What emis/em my grandmother's name?" I asked. br /They broke into another /Jeff swung and arm around my sholders and squeezed me again him. br /"I love you, you little shit. You know that?" he grinned wider and pulled me down to a head lock at his side and the bottle in his hand against my face. The motion made my stomach turn sour. "I fucking envy you too. You won't feel any of this in the morning!"br /I pulled from his headlock and stumbled away from him. br /"I love you too, jeff." I said /Jeff took a long swig of vodka and Ben said something that made himself laugh. br /I sank to the leaves and buried my head between my knees, still trying to ease the sick from my belly. br /I felt as if my body was tilting sideways when I could clearly see that I wasn' /It was terrifyingly /emI hate this. /embr /emI needed Jack./embr /I climbed to my feet and started away from Jeff and Ben, towards our home. br /"Where are you going?" Jeff stopped /"I'm going home." I replied, uncharacteristically annoyed by his stupid question. "I have to see jack."br /Jeff picked up on my tone and his temper hardened /"No. you're not. You're not going to tell that asshole what we did tonight!" jeff dropped his bottle down into the leaves and pushed in front of me. br /"I don't feel good. I'm going back." I snapped and pushed past him. He grabbed my hoodie and shoved me back. I stumbled back a few more steps than I'd like, before I regained my /"Common jeff, he's not a drinker. He's practically green. Just let him go." Ben tired to /Of course jeff wasn't listening. He never listens when he's in a dangerous mood like this. br /"Cut the shit! I know you're just going to run over there and tell Jack what we let you do! You're just a snitching little bitch! You're always hiding behind the three like a little pussy!" emby the three, he was talking about Masky, hoodie, and jack. The strongest and the one's who hold authority over the rest of us./em "You know nothing can touch you with the three of them! Well you know what? They're fucking tired of you! That's why they left you! Slender chose you for his proxy, but we ALL know you're just a fucking mistake! You're a screw up!" br /I growled at him, a glowing rage lit a fire in my body. br /"Shut up, jeff!" I resorted "You don't know what you're talking about! You weren't there! You were never there because you won't stop feeling sorry for yourself! You won't get off the TV and do something for a change! At least I'm trying! I train, and fight, and work constantly so I could be what they want me to be!" I was seeing red and my voice wavered with the heavy amount of rage. "and I emstrongam/strong/em a proxy! You hate that don't you? You're just mad because I'm going to be above you when I'm done! I should be higher than you as it is! I'm stronger and faster than you! I deserve to be with the three!"br /Jeff laughed drily and shoved his face into mine. br /"You ain't going to get there kid. You don't have the skill! Those fucks can teach you all they want, but you don't have the balls! You couldnt even pull the trigger! What makes you think you're going to be anything but the lowest peice of scum here?" Jeff shoved me hard. br /"whoa, whoa, whoa!" Ben tried to intervene. br /With and angry growl I shoved my body into jeff the moment I caught my /That's all it took for us the be at each others throats. br /We were no longer friends. br /I didn't care how much I hurt him and I didn't care how much he hurt me. I just wanted him to pay for the words that split into me. br /The words that were so cruel because they were true. br /I swung my fist across his face and he swung his. Our feet kicked up the leaves as we moved, swing after swing, stepping, shoving. br /Like a /This wasn't like the last time we fought. br /I wasn't helpless and /I was stronger than him now. I was fighting back. br /I was fighting back and it hurt me. br /emstrongIt hurt/strong/emem. /embr /emEvery bit of contact I made with his body broke me- It broke me in a way that made me weak. I didn't want this. Even with the rage inside me, I couldn't stand hurting him. /embr /I bared my teeth, unable to continue doing this and pulled away from him out of his reach. He must have felt the same way because he stopped fighting me without /Our shoulders rose and fell as huffed vapor from our /I glared at the twinkle of blood that started to grow from his bottom lip, I willed him to look away first, to step down, to apologize to /But it was Ben who spoke first. br /"What the hell man?" he snapped at jeff. br /Jeff ignored him and whipped the blood from his lip. He snarled at me. br /"The proxies didn't need you then and they sure as hell don't need you now."br /The anger that left moments ago built back up in me as quickly as it left. br /I was so sick of hearing this! I'm so sick of being the burden! Im so sick of being treated like i couldn't do anything right! He was right. No one needed me, masky and hoodie didn't need me, they left me here to be someone else's /They never gave me a /I was never given a chance! br /I spun around and started toward the direction masky and hoodie left earlier today. A day past Cadence, a day and half from here. br /I could make it. br /"Toby, where you going, bro?" Ben asked. br /The leaves on the ground were working against me as i stumbled through them. They felt as if they were dragging my feet down like water. br /"I'm going to show masky and hoodie that I'm not a waste of time! You're wrong!" br /"Yeah, well good luck fucking finding them! You fucking idiot!" jeff slurred. "Tell Tim I told him to fuck off!"br /I flipped him off. br /He flung something small against my back, intending it to hit harder than it actually did. "Yeah, well fuck you too asshole!" br /I ignored him and pushed through a cluster of wiry twigs, snapping them one by one with my weight until i could no longer feel them snag onto my /"Common Toby!" Ben whined still expecting me to turn around and go back. "Lets just go home! You're drunk! You're an angry drunk! We know that now! Lets just go back so you can sleep it off! Toby!" br /I reached forward blindly to grab onto whatever was in front of me and let my hand rap around a flimsy young tree. I pulled on it, half using its branches as balance and half pushing it out of my way. br /I could hear them walking through the leaves behind me. I broke from their sight and they were coming to retrieve me. br /Drag me back like a caged /I pushed myself through the brush faster. br /The last of the twigs gave way against my body. As soon as a broke through the growth-br /I ran. br /"Hey!" Jeff reached out and tried to grab my hood. "Dumbass, get back here!"br /"Toby!" Ben called. br /The ground blurred under me as i ran, only a select spot became clear just under my feet. I ran through streams and leaped over rocks. br /They weren't going to catch me. The edge of slender's territory was my sanctuary. The finish line to /"Toby!" Jeff called "I'm sorry okay? Come back here! I'm going to break your fucking neck! Toby!"br /His apology didn't mean anything to me. The damage has been done. I had to prove him wrong, I had to show him that i was needed, the proxies needed me. I wasn't a /I emwasn't /ema mistake! br /I could see the trees breaking up, they grew less dense the closer I came to the edge of the territory. br /"Toby, common! You're being reckless! Don't listen to jeff! He's drunk! You're both emreally/em drunk!"br /emI will not hear. /embr /Moonlight shown past the trees over a long stretch of black /They wouldn't be able to cross slender's territory. Jeff wasn't able to be in public anymore and Ben couldn't leave slenders protection without being claimed by /I busted through the tree line, away from slender's territory, across the road, into freedom. br /I turned back when I reached the other side. br /One last glimpse of Ben and Jeff as they broke through the /Ben skidded to a halt at the edge of the trees, but jeff raced out-only to stop when head lights appeared down road from us. br /That car was buying me time. Time jeff didn't have if he was going after me. br /I turned my back and ran into the woods across from our own. br /Away from /If only I knew, br /I wasn't going to make it back./p 


	6. Chapter 5- Decay

div align="left"  
p dir="ltr"strongemI wrote this chapter three different times over the last two weeks. I finally gave in and settled with one after I realised they were doing very boring stuff in the first half of the character. I can't do much to change that. I considered taking this chapter out because of this, but It has very important information in it that couldn't be neglected... Just bear with me please./em/strongbr /-/p  
/div  
p dir="ltr"br /-/p  
div align="left"  
p dir="ltr"An overcasted sky in the early dawn. br /Our breaths hung in the air as we rose from the cellar and followed Tom to the sea of leaves. br /The sky had cried tears after Tom drug me back into /Thick and heavy tears that left indents soil under my bear feet. br /dispite the fresh and dewey mist that clung to the rows and rows of fully mature crops, there was a smell of something indescribable made my breath catch in my /emStrong, /embr /emPotent, /embr /emUnwavering./embr /I couldn't find the source of it all. br /When I looked out over the field of leaves and soil, all I could see was the life dripping with rain water. Not the death that made itself known by the smell it forced itself into our senses. br /The smell was out of place around the perfectly plump roots that bulged from under the soil. br /My mouth watered and my stomach made a noise at the thought of food. br /emOnly one meal a day. /embr /I sighed and clutched my stomach tightly, trying to stop it from groaning inside. br /I watched Jane. br /I watched her body move unnaturally as she eased herself to the ground. It was as if each movement was a straining task for her. br /This was pain. br /I knew this was /Jane was in pain, and I knew it was because of me. br /Jane found me over her shoulder and give me a sympathetic look. Her jade eyes brightened with worry and saddened with understanding of my /I dropped my arms and /She gave me sympathy and I stronghated/strong her for it. br /I knocked her only meal onto the floor last night. br /I carelessly took away the only sorce of life she had. Her delicate body so starved, weak, she never commented on my selfishness or complained about the hunger that must be killing her right /She deserves it more than /emI'm so /emHow dare she care so much./embr /emYou're dying! Why aren't you doing something?/embr /emShe wants me to feel this way. She's cruel./embr /emWhy won't you fight? You have to try and survive! Why are you giving up? /embr /emShe doesn't care./embr /emI can't watch you go. /embr /emI don't know you!/embr /emThis isn't fair! /embr /Her eyes were toren away from me when Tom pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. br /The jingle of small metal keys scared her-terrified all of them. br /I watched them. br /I watched them all drop down on their weak /One by one they began digging at the earth with their bare hands. br /No tools, no gloves, nothing. br /emObedient/em, emsubordinate, tired machines/em. br /emThis is /ememwrong. /embr /I see Tom move on the corner of my eye and I find him facing me. br /I'm the only one standing. The only one who isn't crawling down on my hands and knees to please him. br /My heart is pounding against my chest with hot rage. br /His worn eyes dared me with twisted /He wanted me to disobey /He wanted to have the reason to hurt and punish me for each undeserving breath I took. br /He wanted to finish what we started last night. br /But that was just it. br /My hatred grew just as strong the longer I see him. br /The longer he is alive the more I want him /I wanted to hurt him. I wanted strangle the life out of him for taking me away. I wanted to kill him for what he was doing. I wanted to beat his stoic face in until there was nothing left. br /But I can' /I couldn' /I needed to stay alive for her. br /I clenched my jaw tightly and forced my eyes down .br /He would take my life with the advantage he gave /He made sure I was helpless, useless, broken when he disabled my dominant hand. br /This was how he was going to break me. br /To tame me into submission. Eventually when I'm just as weak and defenceless as the others, I will have to depend on him to keep me alive. br /He will hold my life in his hands and take it away or abuse it whenever he pleased. br /Like a holy /I closed my eyes tightly, destroying any pride I dared to hold onto and walked over to the others. br /emAs long as I am breathing I will never be tamed. /embr /I just needed time to heal. To plan. br /I'll give it my all. br /Maybe I'll have a /Maybe my efforts will be in vain. Maybe I will find myself in Tom's hands. br /emSo be it. /embr /I rather die than to waste away in their mercy. br /I could feel the weight of his mocking satisfaction on my back as I sank down next to Jane. br /I sunk my fingers into the /My broken hand bent uselessly against the ground and my other hand was only able to create three straight valleys just above the surface where my fingers pulled up the mud. br /Jane snuck a hurried glance up towards Tom, who was now preoccupied with opening the shed to the left of the field, and reached under my arms to the small hole I was attempting to make. br /Her fingers slipped into the mud in a cupping motion and moved the soil away from the base of a plant. br /The anger that held onto me quickly melted away at her nearness. br /I watched in awe as her skillful hands dug up the earth, quickly doubling my hole in size, until the white of a large purple root was exposed to me. br /emA turnip./embr /emShe was showing me what to do./embr /Harvesting, unearthing, pulling the mature vegetable from the /But I didn't dare look at /I was /She grabbed the top of the root and began pulling it free, but her brief nearness was taken away from me when Tom dropped something in the shed. br /I remember how to breath in her absence. br /She quickly began to work on her own space. br /I heard a small sniffle across from me. br /I sobered and looked to the others around me. They were in the process of or already pulled their own turnips from the /It was the youngest who caught my attention. br /I studied how the boy rapped his small hands around the stock and root of the plant and tugged and wiggled it until the earth finally let go of the life it gave. br /He almost fell backwards from the release, but quickly steadied himself on his hands and knees before moving onto the next. br /emWas this my life now?/embr /I looked down to my own plant and dug around the turnip with the only hand I had until the root stuck out enough for emmy/em hand to grab /I could hear the turnips snap and crunch as I pulled it from the ground, leaving behind a snug hole in the /"whoa..." I whispered in amazement. I was completely in awe. br /Something so dark and ugly, something we used to dispose a delicate creature in, could mother something entirely new from nothing. Something that gives life back to the /I studied the turnip and the ground until I was interrupted by the sound of a thump and a quick low humming sound behind me. br /Tom was tossing out empy buckets and troughs down the rows of crops where we worked. br /The children gathered the vegetables in their arms and shirts and hurriedly padded to the nearest container when they dumped their hard work into. br /That's how it was for the next few hours. br /The gray light turned to a warm glow and our breaths became a soft kiss of mist against our lips as the sun heated the air around us. br /We dug the roots up from the ground moving further down the row until there was nothing left but disturbed earth and broken /Every now and then I would see Jane or one of the three children carry a pile of white and violet in their baggy shirts and dump it into the nearest trough. br /That was the closest thing to a break they received. br /Tom drifted around us, watching us, overseeing our work, and becoming bored after /"Hey!" a loud whisper came from across from me after Tom left to go fix something in the shed. The voice came from a young boy who was only a year or two older than the youngest on. His olive skin was dark with mud and bruises and his small sholders stuck out sharply from the cut sleeves of his olive green T-shirt. "Did you thee Tom's face? Did you do that?" br /"uh..." I was completely taken aback by this. I caught him staring and grinning at me a handfull of times throughout the morning, but I didn't expect him to actually say anything to me. br /He didn't wait for me to gather my /"that's tho cowl! You have a bruise too! But I think yours is cowl! You look like a pirate!" he smiled excitedly, exposing his missing front teeth. br /Jane was the next to speak. "Marco! Don't encourage him!" she /"Well it'th true!" he resorted then turned back to me. "When I'm aths big aths you, I'm going to beat him up too! But way better than you did!"br /"Marco-!" Jane started, but a new voice cut her off. br /"Don't be an idiot! You're going to get yourself killed!" a girl about the age of fourteen glared up at me through her blond hair. Her features were sharp like the others, but different in a way that told me she always had sharp features. "I don't know how you got away with it, but some of us were killed for much less. What makes you so special?" br /I stared at her. I wasn't sure what to make of this. I wasn't allowed to talk to the people in town, but it didn't matter because no one ever tried to speak to me. br /Not with masky and hoodie /No one complimented me or snapped at me the way these two did. br /With Marco's amazement and the girl's anger, I was lost with mixed /The potato I was working on snapped in half in the ground with a /I jumped at the sound. br /Jane quickly reached over and helped me bury my mistake out of /"what did they do?" I asked. br /It was jane who /"She tried to send an S.O.S out into the public with the vegetables we harvested. Cheryl found out and... We didn't see her after that." br /"Yeah!" Marco's turn "Her name was Jenny! She carved 'help' with her fingernail like thith!" Marco raised his index finger and moved it in a writing Motion. "Thomeone saw it when they were about to buy it and they emtold/em Cheryl!"br /"No they didn't, stupid!" the girl snapped "Cheryl found it when she was loadin' the truck! I was there!"br /"Enough, Alex!" Jane's voice was firmer and stronger than I have heard it before. I forced back a smile. "I know you're upset, but you can't keep acting like this. Toby didn't know about jenny or why he's here, he was just scared."br /This didn't ease Alex's anger. br /"Why are you defending him?" Alex threw down a potato. "You should hate him as much as I do! You're going to die because of him! Why-" she choked on her words and dropped her head with the sudden weight of her /An unwelcomed silence quickly settled over us. br /I sat up slowly from the hunched over position I've been working in and stared at Alex's closed off face. br /"What... What are you talking about?" I didn't realize i asked until after i said it. br /I wasn't expecting to feel so cold by this news. I didn't even know why I cared. br /The thought of being alone in that cell, the way Jane must have been for so long, made my blood turn to ice. br /Alex whipped her tears away angrily and glared up at me. br /"You are sharing her room, right? There's only four rooms. Five of us. Janes' been here longer than any of us, she's almost eighteen. there's no room for her anymore. Why else would they shove you in with her?" br /"That's not-" Jane started. Alex cut her off once more. br /"Don't say it's not true! I'm not an idiot! You can lie to these two." she gestured to the two young boys with a muddy hand.", but you can't lie to me! I'm tired of just sitting here and letting you take all the hits!"br /Tom approached the shed door and our heads dropped back to the field. br /He must have heard us arguing out here, but didn't want to put the energy in to making us shut up. br /Not like he needed a lot of it. br /"What are we supposed to do without you?" Alex was the first to speak, despite her back being toward the shed. Her anger was broken down by hopelessness and it left her a shaken mess. br /Jane looked away and we were left in another /I numbly pulled my pile of potatoes into my solid black shirt and stood to dump them in a bucket a few steps away. br /The air was so dense I was looking for any excuse to leave. br /emWas this really my fault? Were they really going to lose Jane because of me? Did my mistakes not only ruin my life, but took another as well? /embr /I hesitated long enough to attempt to swallow the welt in my throat and paused long enough to gain a least some of my strength before I turned back to the others. br /"spt!" Marco spat the moment I climbed back down to my /I looked at him. "Hey, Toby. Tham ith trying to get your attention."br /I looked at the little boy next to him. Sam held his hands tightly to his chest with his round black eyes gazing up at me. br /"He doesn't talk," Marco clarified. "I call him tham tho." br /"I thought it was Max." Alex put in /"I like tham better."br /"You can't just change his name like that."br /"Yeah-huh!"br /"No you can't!"br /"Yeah-huh!"br /"Jane!"br /"I already tried to tell him, Alex."br /I wasn't listening anymore. The child's eyes flicked down to the dirt in front of my /I looked down and found something white partially sticking out of a clump of mud. br /I slowly reached down and pick it up. br /It was small, light, a signature shape. br /emA human/em emmolar/em. br /I looked back up at Sam in alarm. He untangled his hand from his tight hold over his chest and pointed at the compost peaking out from behind the shed. br /I quickly dropped the tooth and whipped my hand over my pant leg, smearing mud across my Jeans. br /"It's Max's turn-"br /"tham!"br /"whatever!"br /"Tommy~!" Cheryl sang as she slammed open the back door of the forest green farm house. br /The life from their eyes disappear behind terror and they dropped back down to the dirt. They began to dig faster, efficiently with scared hands, at Cheryl's arrival, but I couldn't bring myself to touch the mud that caked my hands. br /emCan they do that? Use children as compost and sale the produce to people?/embr /My hands shook as I imagined working through the remains of Jane's body. I couldn't help thinking about Marco, Sam, and Alex's body being thrown into a pit to be eaten away by worms. br /I'm now trapped in there, alive, suffocating in the smell-the darkness- they, my family-couldn't find me if i was dirt. br /Maybe in a distant future they would walk over the remains of my body, ignorant, unaware, /emOnly way to be at peace./embr /There was no peace here. br /Jenny and the countless children whom they killed were thrown into the foundation of this farm. br /"Oh, look at them! Aren't they wonderful children? Don't you just love them, Tommy?" Cheryl was saying. "They would do anything to please their mother! I believe-"br /The bodies of the children I am now sitting on. br /Bits and pieces,br /Parts and limbs, br /Lost lives, grieving parent' /Lost children and grieving souls. br /A sharp snap of a long potato stopped cheryl short. br /Everyone froze and all eyes landed on sam. The small child held a half of a sweet potato above the ground. The other half remained stuck within the earth. br /Sam's lip quivered as he stared up at Cheryl, who looked as if she'd been slapped, in /Cheryl threw down the coffee she had been holding and stormed toward Him. br /Jane was on her feet, trying to stop Cheryl from reaching him. br /"His hands are too small- accident! It was an accident!"br /"Four months! Four months it took to grow my little babies!" Cheryl was saying, hardly noticing the weak young girl trying to stop her. br /Tom clutch the hammer in his hand tightly and moved towards his wife. br /Towards Jane. br /In that moment I was on my feet. My mind was primal and crazed with rage. br /"Get away from her!" I shoved Cheryl back and pulled Jane away from them, away from danger, away from emhim. /embr /Tom caught the woman against him and moved her aside with a quick shove of his over sized arm. br /There was no one in the way of us now, no one to stop us from getting what we wanted. br /We wanted blood to fall. br /We wanted death. br /Hunter vs. Hunter br /Tom swung the iron hammer with a inraged growl. The single tool in his hand on a single path wasn't a problem to dodge and take ahold of. br /I made the mistake of grabbing the tool with my unusable dominant hand. He grabbed my blistered arm and twisted it away from the tool in attempt to immobilize me with pain. I took that moment to use my other hand the shove back of the weapon against his face. His head jerked back with the force and he stumbled backbr /one, br /Two, br /Threebr /steps before he regained /I needed as much space as I could get to regain myself and take hold of my role. I refuse to continue to be on the defense. I was going to make him emstrongpay/strong/emem. /embr /Tom raised the hammer again to charge and swing and I braced myself for the attack. I dared him to attack me, to give me access to the weapon. I just needed to get my hands on that hammer. A tool was all I needed to get out of here, to get them emall /emout of here. br /But right before Tom swung Cheryl stepped in front of him, her pale wrinkly hand against his huge /Tom stopped the hammer still in the air. br /His sholders rose and fell with enraged huffs and his dirty bared teeth were coated with blood that streamed in thick rivers from his nose. br /I watched him, the rage within me causing my breaths to come out just as heavy breaths. br /"that's enough, dear." Cheryl patted his chest. "I am quite alright, wonderful in fact! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!" br /Cheryl dropped her hand from his chest and grabbed Jane's hand gingerly with both of hers. br /"oh, my sweet sweet child! I am so proud of you! So so very proud! You have won him over faster than I have dreamed! I'm so proud of you my sweet little thing!"br /Jane's terrified eyes landed on me. br /emWhat's happening? /embr /They asked. I didn't know. br /"You deserve a reward! You and boy will spend much needed quality time together!" Cheryl stopped and looked over to the other wide eyed children in the mud. "GET BACK TO WORK!" she screamed at them in a shrill voice. They instantly tore their eyes away from us and began tending to the last of the potatoes and the many more sweet potatos. br /Cheryl carefully led Jane to the collar hatch against the back of the farm house. "Tommy, love. Bring him here." she said without turning /I didn't need Tom's help. I was going to follow her /Tom slammed a hand down on the back of my neck and led me back down into the /We were going to spend some 'quality time' together./p  
/div  
p dir="ltr" /p 


	7. Chapter 6- My Sweetest Friend

"Toby, please calm down. You shouldn't waste your energy over this." Jane pleaded.  
I was back to my usual routine.  
Pacing this suffocating concrete box of a cell.  
Only this time, I was in complete darkness.  
Jane told me that the lights were powered inconsistently down here. Sometimes the lights stayed on or off for days at a time.  
On or off,  
I couldn't stand it either way.  
This was my hell.  
My world felt even smaller in darkness.  
The sound of the metal bell dragging behind my strides grew unbearably loud.  
The dirty rough concrete underneath my feet was driving me mad.  
But this wasn't what was getting to me the most. It only fueled the unbearable fire under my skin.  
I stopped abruptly and spun to the sound of her voice.  
"Waste my energy? You're going to die, Jane! Why am I the only one worrying here? Why are you just sitting there and letting them do this to you?"  
In the darkness she didn't speak.  
I could feel my breath grow heavier with frustration as I waited for her to say something.  
 _Just say something! Anything!_  
 _Tell me im wrong!_  
 _You're not going to die!_  
 _Please_  
She didn't.  
 _You're a cowered_.  
"Is it because you're weak? You're weak. You can't fight because they'll hurt you." I pushed on. "It won't happen! I'll protect you! Just let me think of something! you're just weak right now. You all are!"  
She still didn't answer.  
 _My thoughts only raced faster._  
I grabbed a fistful of my hair and spun back around.  
I paced away from her.  
My twisted energy burned inside me. I couldn't stay still, I needed to move, I needed to think, to move, to think.  
I need space, I needed to breathe.  
My strides took me to the wall and back to her, to the wall and back.  
To the wall and back.  
I can't understand these feelings, I can't understand how to handle this.  
I'm so scared.  
I'm so angry.  
I'm so sorry,  
Confused,  
Guilty,  
Betrayed,  
 _Pissed._  
"You're an idiot! It's because you don't want to hurt them!" The words were like acid the moment they forced themselves out of my mouth. Scolding, hot, and dangerous.  
The underlying cause of my stress was brought out in full force of my anger.  
"Toby..." She started.  
Maybe to soothe me.  
Maybe to defend herself.  
It doesn't matter.  
He words meant that my words were true.  
I was inconsolable.  
"What is wrong with you?" I yelled, "After everything they did, you won't hurt them! You're going to let them get away with it? Why? Do you think you're some kind of saint? Is that why you're so nice all the time? Do you think you're a better person for letting them kill you? What are you trying to accomplish here? What is going through your head?" _why would you be so kind to me if you knew this was going to happen? "_ You're going to die, Jane! Nothing you been through would matter! Nothing you ever did would matter! _You_ won't matter! You'll just be like the others! You'll just be gone, a nameless body behind the shed! Someone's teeth pulled up from the mud and tossed aside because they're in the way! No one would care that you're gone! Is that what you want?"  
I was across the cell before I realized what I was doing. I heard the springs of the bed squeak as she flinched away from my sudden movement.  
I could almost see her hold her arms up to shield her face in my mind's eye.  
Even though It didn't even cross my mind to hurt her, I moved toward her the way I've always done with masky and jeff when I fought with them. The way I physically expressed my pent up emotions and anxiety. Two men who had no reason to fear me. The two men who didn't fear the world the way she does.  
This wasn't something I should have done with her.  
I scared her.  
When she has so much to fear already.  
I didn't want her to fear me.  
I couldn't live knowing that.  
The weight of her fear was heavy on my chest.  
With my anger quickly numbing into guilt, I turned away from her and crossed the cell. I dropped down facing the far wall and buried my face in my hands-away from the fears and hate that remained trapped within me.  
There was no hiding from it all.  
Without my anger I was scared for her.  
I was terrified for this person I only met yesterday.  
She needed to stay with me.  
In our shared time of desperation, she was the only person I had to hold on to.  
Both of us unwilling to face our fates alone.  
I _needed_ her.  
"Please understand." Jane said weakly. "I can't." I bared my teeth and closed my eyes tightly.  
 _I can't hear this. I won't._ _I can't watch this happen. I can't allow this._  
but this was the way the world worked. Jeff told me this while he drank on behalf of Jack's and the proxies temporary absence.  
'The weak die and the strongest are the only ones left behind.'  
I didn't want this.  
Jane existed among the weak.  
I was going to survive with or without her.  
Our existences weren't going to stay intertwined and connected for long.  
Through twisted obsession for which our lives became disposable possessions to waste, it was only a matter of time before she is taken from me and I find my inevitable escape.  
And yet.  
Despite the fact that I knew she was weak-  
When she touched me, her hands gently placed on my shoulders,  
I didn't fight her.  
I needed her touch-  
She was still alive.  
And I needed her.  
"Im going to be okay, Toby." she shoothed.  
"I don't understand you."  
"I don't expect you too."  
"But you expect me to believe you?" My anger protects me from the other emotions that threatened to hurt me. "You think that just because you're too stupid to fight back I'm supposed to just accept this and listen to your bogus spew about how its okay?" I pointed to my eye. "Look at my face, Jane! Look at you! We are being held in a basement!" I threw my arm up to the direction of the others above ground. "There are kids being starved and worked like slaves! Tom came at you with a hammer! He was going to kill you! He was going to kill you with a hammer, Jane! How are you okay? How are you okay with any of this?"  
"It isn't like I have a choice, Toby! I would drive myself insane if i contuined see every horrible thing they've done to us!"  
"So you just pretend that none of it happened?"  
"That's not what I meant."  
"Then tell me! What did you mean? Make me understand what the hell you're talking about because I'm starting to think you're completely delusional!"  
The sound of our voices surrounded us in a choir that rang down the tight hall.  
This causes us to fall into a pained silence.  
Yelling at each other wasn't what Cheryl wanted us to do in here.  
I didn't understand her intentions for leaving us down here, or what she wanted from me to begin with, but I knew this wasn't it.  
The possibility of her coming back down here was becoming too real.  
Jane lowered her head and spoke against my shoulder.  
"When you have nothing else, you need to focus on what you do have."  
"You don't have anything. They took everything from you." I growled.  
 _Why don't you hate them? Why can't you hate them? Hate them as much as I do. Hate them for everything they did to you_  
"No. You're wrong. I'm still me and no matter what they do to me, I won't let them change that."  
"hah." I gave a dry laugh. "Why would it matter? You're going to die." a sudden thought hit me. "You tried to help Cheryl, didn't you? Is that how she brought you here? Did she fall down or stub a toe? Did she 'accidentally' kicked a puppy?"  
Of course Jane didn't say anything. Even though it was just a guess, it was painfully easy to see the truth in her actions.  
 _Oh god, Jane..._  
I smiled sadly into my hands "I bet the puppy was in on it too."  
I could almost feel her eyes roll over my shoulder.  
"She didn't kick a puppy, Toby." she sighed. "Maybe I wouldn't be here if I chose to look the other way, but I suppose this is my fatal flaw. I would help her again if given a chance."  
"Why?" I scowled at her.  
 _'There is always a reason for the way someone acts.'_  
Hoodies words came to me as I asked.  
Was he talking about people like her? People who do something unbelievably stupid and never learn from their mistakes?  
"Its because of my mother, Toby. She tried to kill me before I was born... She believed I was the spawn of the devil because of what my father did to her. She believed that I was truly evil..." Jane pushed her head into the back of my shoulder as if she was using me for comfort. "She wasn't well, and I knew this. She was mentally ill and self medicated with abusive drugs long before I was conceived. My grandmother found out she was pregnant and put her in a attention center while she carried me, to keep me safe from her until I was born. Even after I arrived in the psych ward, my mother still tried to hurt me. She didn't even hold me... She didn't even try to see who I truly was. She repeated over and over again that I shouldn't be here. T-that I was never meant to be alive. She told me this my entire life... Over and over... And over." her hands slowly left my shoulders as she spoke. I felt her soft pant leg brush against the back of my arm as she settled herself onto the floor and pulled her knees to her chest.  
"My older brother and grandmother were my primary caregivers. I love them more than anything, but I needed more. I needed my mother to see that I wasn't evil." she laughed a small humourless laugh. "For as long as I can remember I did everything I could to be that good person she didn't believe I was. I wanted to deserve her love. I wanted to prove that I deserved the mother my brother had. Even if my brother wanted nothing to do with her for what she did to me. I have always forgave and loved everyone with every breath I took, but she never saw me. She didn't care." she scooted forward next to me and leaned her head against the wall. "I obsessed so much about the way she felt about me, that I surrounded my entire life around trying to be good. Now I can't see myself being any other way. I don't want to be anything else."  
I closed my eyes painfully knowing what she was going to say next.  
"When Cheryl decides to take my life, I will be okay knowing that... My mother was wrong about me."  
 _Unbelievably wrong..._  
Mothers are the heart and souls of all children.  
A child is who they are because of them.  
So similar, but yet not the same.  
Can a mother just _hate_ their child? Could they want to kill their own children?  
There was a lot about this world that I didn't understand, but i knew this was a situation that I was never going to understand.  
Perhaps this is why Jane was so different from her mother.  
Her heart and soul was never given to her from the start. She needed to mend one on her own.  
She created a delicate and kind soul for herself.  
A soul that will kill me if it was taken away.  
I'm completely in awe of who she is.  
I was falling for her and I couldn't stop it.  
It hurt.  
"Toby?" Jane asked in my grief stricken silence.  
I didn't want this.  
I sensed her hand reaching out to find my face, to see if I moved away from her.  
I caught her wrist.  
"Yeah, I'm still here." I mumbled dully.  
"Okay." was all she said before we fell into a another silence.  
I couldn't understand the feelings I carried in my chest for her.  
I knew what it was, but I didn't know how much it was going to affect my ability to think.  
I didn't understand love. I only knew what sally told me and nothing else.  
The way she romanticized about it and smiled dreamily with her fantasies.  
She was never going to find love, but I wasn't supposed to either.  
I was never supposed to be exposed to anyone my age due to my rapid attachments.  
I needed to mature.  
I needed to learn understand my hormones and emotions.  
I needed to be immuned to it like the other proxies.  
But I'm not and I haven't.  
I fell for her quickly and unforgivably hard.  
"What was your family like?" Janes voice broke into my thoughts.  
"My..." I asked slowly as if i was waking up from a dream. "Family?"  
"Yes...your mother and father, your family? I think since we're here together... Now. It might be best if we take your mind away from here. Even if its just for a little while."  
I heard her shift to face me. My heart drumbbed against my chest.  
"I-I don't have a mother or a father..." I paused "My family isn't from blood. My brothers aren't really my brothers... But they raised me. Like how your brother raised you."  
I hear her smile.  
"What are they like?"  
"Busy." I said bluntly.  
She waited for a better repose.  
I shifted uncomfortably under her hidden jade gaze.  
"My brothers...they are different from everyone else in my family. They are strong and respected. Smart, skilled-everything I'm not." All the insecurities that built up over the last year, the insecurities I _actually_ miss, were now nostalgic to me. I couldn't help but smile. "They wanted me to be like them, but I just kept disappointing them. It drove my older brother nuts. I think he had a migraine everytime he saw me."  
"I'm sure they weren't disappointed in you, Toby." Jane tried to reassure me.  
I shook my head and dug at a blister on my wrist.  
 _I think you're wrong._  
I told her everything.  
I told her how I woke up in the infirmary with a blank mind.  
How masky looked at me in disgust and how I saw hoodie's devastated eyes.  
I recalled my earliest memories of how they watched me fall to the ground over and over again as I remembered how to stand. How they looked the other way when jeff beat me and never protected me from his murderos dominance.  
How I was treated as an out cast and was avoided by everyone because I was just a screwed up mistake. A mistake no one wanted to deal with or look at because I was morally wrong in nature.  
I told her how sally was the first one to be kind to me. She was the first to give me a chance and treat me like a person after she finally stopped hiding from me, to see that I was more than an empty shell. I was still alive.  
I told her that Masky and hoodie quickly followed after her. Taking their role as my protectors and reteaching me the basic skills that were lost with my memory.  
How quickly our bond started to form the moment they saw who I was.  
I told her about my old family. About my mother and father and older sister. I told her how masky and hoodie told me about them, eagerly trying to get me to remember. That I couldn't grieve for the sister I no longer remembered.  
That no matter how hard I tried I could only feel sympathy for her death.  
I told her how the angry person who lived in my body before me wasn't me.  
He was the person masky and hoodie watched my father beat without knowing he was the one slender picked.  
How they believed slender was after my father.  
I told her about my training to be a "assassin, tracker, spy," because she didn't understand what a proxy was.  
"proxies are whatever slender needs us to be."  
I told her about sally, jack, jeff, and Ben and the events leading up to my abduction.  
Everything I told her scared her. She commented on how starge I acted and understood my aggression towards Tom.  
She told me about her older brother and grandmother. How her brother worked constantly to give her everything he could. That he hated how she spoke about their mother, how protective he tended to be over her. How he hated ketchup and gagged at the sight of tomatoes.  
She told me that her grandmother was dying of an illness before she was taken. She grieved over the fact that she never said goodbye to her and how her brother lost both of them in such a short time.  
In the darkness we talked about our past. We talked about our new love and futures, dreams, and the 'what ifs'.  
Hours pass and we drifted closer together. Touching as shared fears and held onto each other as we pretended that we were no longer in the cell.  
For a time I truly believed it.  
We were free together.  
We could explore our newly discovered love together without being separated before we had a chance.  
But in the end, we knew that was impossible.  
"Oh how sweet." Cheryl said behind a blinding beam of light that shined into our sleep hazed eyes. "I almost don't want to break you two up."


End file.
